Misc Leatherworking Tips

Vegetable-tanned/oak-tanned - stiff, undyed leather tanned with
tanins from tree bark, roots, etc. The only leather suitable for
tooling/carving, and only if it's full-grain leather. Comes in a variety of
qualities. Mot saddle leathers are veg-tanned.

Chrome-tanned/alum-tanned - softer leathers, for garments,
upholstery, etc. This is what you're going to be making costumes out of (not
armour though). These leathers include suedes.

Buck-tan - usually refers to cowhide that has been treated with
oils to simulate a deerskins softness and colour, but basically an altered
chrome-tan hide.

Note: there are a number of other variations; chrome/veg-retan, latigo,
oil-tanned, etc., but you could write a book on the subject.

Besides the tannage, you have...

Full-grain/top-grain leather - sometimes used synonymously, but I
think top-grain has had some treatment to the top surface of the hide. It
basically refers to a piece of leather that includes the top surface of the
skin. The best quality and durability.

Nubuck leather - a top-grain leather that had enough flaws in the
surface (blowfly scars, barbed-wire scars, blemishes, etc.) that the surface
was "brushed" to give it a fine-velvety finish. Still a pretty good leather.

Split - this is where the tannery has split the hide into two or
more layers to get more leather out of a single hide. The top split usually
goes into garments, furniture, wallets, handbags, belts, etc., while the
bottom split can go into a variety of uses, but frequently seen as suede.

Top-finished split - interesting stuff; the tannery takes a cheap
cr*ppy split and applies a urethane "top-grain" to it. Sometimes very well
done, and you'd have to know what you're looking for to tell the difference,
but the difference in strength and price is extreme.

Suede - any chrome-tanned split. Can come in a vast variety of
colours, thicknesses and stiffnesses.